The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-09-22
THE ARTISTS OF FRANCE.
How Some Great Painters Heve Taken
Liberties With the Facts of History.


From the Philadelphia Neics
The French artist whose picture in the
last salon showed the ecce ntricity OF pre-
senting a cavalier of the time OF Louis
XIV, armed with a modern revolver, was
not alone in his anachronism. Some Of the
early painters were amusingly careless
about such matters Tintoretto, in pic
ture of the children of Israel gathering
mama, represents them as having taken
the precaution of arniing themselves with
Shotguns
When Cigoli painted the aged Simeon at
the circumcision of the infant Saviour,
which picture is now in St Petersburg, he
remembered that agei men wear spectacles,
and so placed these conveniences upon
Simeons nose. In picture by Verr1o OF
Christ healing the sick the bystanders are
represented with periwigs, This ludicrous
effect is equaled in Albert Durer's picture or
the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the
Garden of Eden by an angel wearing a
founced petticoat The same artist, in his
scene of Peter denying Christ, depicts
Roman soldier quietly enjoying a pipe OF
tobacco
OF all the artists who have sinned against
propriety or probability the Dutch and
Flemish have been among the most eccen-
trio. In the Museum of Vienna there is a
picture of ''Christ Bearing the Cross% by
Peter BrIeghel the elder, which shows
Christ carrying his burden, while monk,
cITuciix in hand, exhorts the two thieves to
die repentant. David Teniers, the younger,
in his "Denial of ST. Peter" in the Louvre
gallery represents Peter as Flemish
guardsman. The soldiers are playing cards
at table, and the whole scene is thor
oughly Flemish. A Dutch painter in a
picture of the wise men worshlpplng
fhn IIAlx t,;1I che Of
wearing a large white surplice and boots
and spurs, and in the act of presenting to
the child model of a Dutch man-of-war.
Another Dutch artist in representing Abra-
ham offering up his son, departs from the
Scriptural account of the patriarch's
stretching forth his hand and taking the
knife,n and shows him as about to shoot
Isaac with blunderbuss Jean Belin, in
one of his pictures, represents the Virgin
and Child listening to a performer
upon the violin, and in another he
has drawn King David playing upon the
harp at the marriage of Christ with st.
Catharine. Nicholas Poussin has represent
ed the Deluge with boats at hand ready for
use, and on, another canvas "Rebecca at
the Well" is seen with Grecian architecture
in the background. And in picture repre-
senting Holsters in the Sea, Listening to
the Preaching of st. Anthony of Padua,n
the Holsters are red, although as yet, it is
fair to presume, unboied. A French artist
has depicted the Lords Supper, the table
being ornamented with tumblers filled
with cigar lighters, and the Virgin Mary,
in another work of the same nationality, is
helping herself to cup of coffee from a
chased coffee pot But drollest of all blum
ders is that which portrays the Garden of
Eden, with Adam and Eve in all their
primeval simplicity, while near them, in
full costume is seen a hunter with q gum
shooting ducks.
The time for these absurdities on canvas
has passed away. Nowadays the painter is
severely archaeological, and the exceptions to
the rule of accuracy in such matters are in
frequent,